Top 10 Tuesday: Games Starring Stars

Welcome to IGN's weekly countdown of the exceptional, fascinating, and absurd: something we like to call Top 10 Tuesday. Every week we'll feature the top ten games, characters, fashion statements or whatever else we can think of that in some way relates to gaming and its history. And just because it's called Top 10 Tuesday doesn't mean it's always going to be a list of the best -- we like to razz on stuff as much as we like to praise it. From counting down the best consoles ever to revealing the worst-smelling instruction manuals, this is where it's at.

This week we're counting down the top celebrity games. The practice of attaching a recognizable face to a title is almost as old as the videogame industry itself. (Come to think of it, slapping Fonzie's mug onto the cabinet is probably the only thing that would have sold more units of Pong.) Some of these games are awesome, and some are even more awesome, but they are all representative of a society obsessed with celebrity. Here we go:

Hardly a game at all, but still unabashedly awesome, Dennis Miller - That's News to Me was a 3DO experiment in interactive entertainment gone awry. The game attempted to capture the essence of Miller's SNL Weekend Update news anchor persona, but with "interactive controls." Like many a failed 3DO game, these controls boiled down to a choice over what category of joke you wanted to watch, and nothing more. The best part of the game really is sitting back and watching Miller spew some 200 outdated pop culture references and then smile at the camera. We put this game on the list simply because we felt bad for Dennis, who hasn't gotten a fair shake in recent years. Plus, the game is incredibly funny, if for purely unintentional reasons.

American gamers may not be all that familiar with Beat Takeshi (Battle Royal, Zatoichi), but the veteran actor/director has certainly earned his fair share of recognition in Japan. Takeshi No Chousenjou was a Japan-only game that was conceived by and starred the offbeat comedian himself. The game is often regarded as an ironic joke played at the expense of the Japanese gaming community. Takeshi no Chousenjou is an attempt to mock accepted videogame conventions, and on the whole, it succeeds. The game is filled with nigh-impossible, mundane tasks which need completing. Take a trip to the bank and deposit some money, go to a karaoke bar and belt out a tune, sit in front of a pachinko machine and do nothing. All of this and more is possible in Takeshi no Chousenjou!

It didn't take some sort of dolphin from the future to know that the video for Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch's "Good Vibrations" (in which Marky Mark bounces around shirtless shouting things like "come on, come on!", and "feel it, feel it!") would make for a compelling videogame. Although the world's prayers were answered and the SEGA CD filled a void in the all-too-often-ignored genre of 'shirtless douche bag editors,' nobody knows how Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch: Make My Video turned out. Because nobody has actually played this game.

What would be the perfect compliment to Journey's particular brand of mullet-friendly yacht rock? How about an arcade game where band members have giant, black-and-white heads and must dodge rockets while wearing a jetpack? Once you get past how bizarre this title is the trivia aficionado in you might be interested to know this was the first videogame to feature digitized graphics (those freakish heads). Journey is also notable for being the first arcade game to be certified "totally awesome."

Although his formula is showing its age and his genre-dominance is being threatened by EA's skate, Tony Hawk's games are some of the most fun and successful titles ever. The original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater fleshed out the tease of 720 and Skate or Die into 3D skate parks, simultaneously capturing the feel of nailing tricks and taking the sport thrillingly over the top. Unlike some of the celebrities on this list, Tony Hawk's gaming legacy is one he can be proud of.